With respect to Dan's comments, here is another possible explanation for the increase in the Democratic vote in Bridgeport, CT.

The Wall Street Journal compares votes in 2006 with 2010.  But this skips over possible lingering effects from 2008, which can explain the Democratic increase cited in the article (although not the Republican decrease).

According to Victoria Farrar-Myers' case study chapter on the 2008 congressional election of Jim Himes over Chris Shays ("Defending Principles Against a Tsunami" in Cases in Congressional Campaigns: Incumbent Playing Defense, edited by Randall Adkins and David Dulio),  a substantial part of the difference in that congressional election came from increased registration and turnout in Bridgeport. 

According to Farrar-Myers, the Democratic registration in the 4th District grew from 11,438 in 2004 and 15,860 in 2006 to 44,142 in 2008.  The largest piece of that increase came from 8,828 newly registered Democrats in Bridgeport (p. 86).  Bridgeport makes up 19% of the district's population and is the only significant portion of the district whose median income is below the national average (p. 76).

To quote her chapter (pp. 86-87):

     "Bridgeport saw a net gain of 8,500 registered Democrats to Republicans in the year preceding the election (and an overall net gain of over 11,000 between 2004 and 2008), and produced over 7,500 additional votes for Himes than [Democratic candidate Diane] Farrell received four years earlier.
     "The flood of new Democratic voters in Bridgeport, combined with similar increases in the district's others cities, Norwalk and Stamford, which combined nearly equaled the totals in Bridgeport, swung the tide in the district in favor of Himes. What these numbers imply is that if not for the new voters, Shays may very likely have won again in 2008."

Not dispositive in this case, but it's what I had at hand, and seems helpful.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Michael J. Malbin
Executive Director
Campaign Finance Institute
1667 K Street NW (Suite 650)
Washington, D.C. 20006
PH:  202-969-8890. ext. 28
FAX: 202-969-5612
email:  mmalbin@CFInst.org
web: http://www.CFInst.org
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On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 1:16 AM, Lowenstein, Daniel <lowenstein@law.ucla.edu> wrote:

"Foley faces uphill battle in election challenge"

The Connecticut Post offers this report<http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Foley-faces-uphill-battle-in-election-challenge-801389.php>. (http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Foley-faces-uphill-battle-in-election-challenge-801389.php)

Posted by Rick Hasen at 04:55 PM<http://electionlawblog.org/archives/017867.html>

        According to the above article, cited by Rick and relying extensively on our Ned Foley, the chances of the Republican gubernatorial candidate getting relief in Connecticut are pretty small.

        Still, there are questions of at least academic interest raised by what seems to have happened in Bridgeport in this election.  According to an editorial entitled "Yankee Panky" in today's Wall Street Journal, insufficient ballots were printed so that blank ballots had to be photocopied in city offices on election day.  The Journal points to questions thus raised about the custody of these ballots (though it does not say how many such photocopied ballots there were).  The editorial also states Bridgeport failed to meet the Wednesday deadline for reporting results and on Thursday produced hundreds of ballots that had not previously been counted.  (Given the 6,000 vote margin for Democrat Dan Malloy over Republican Tom Foley, these hundreds of ballots could not have been decisive, whatever the story behind them.)  The editorial suggests other possible irregularities, but the passage I want to point to is this:

         "The current count in [Bridgeport] shows Mr. Foley receiving fewer than half as many votes as the GOP candidate received in 2006, while Democratic votes increased by almost 60%.  Mr. Foley was leading by 8,409 votes before the Bridgeport votes were counted."

          In 2006, Republican Vern Buchanan defeated Democrat Christine Jennings in a close Florida congressional race in which there was a serious apparent anomaly in the returns from Democratic-leaning Sarasota County.  Some 18,000 electronic ballots contained no vote in the House race.  Election law scholars and political scientists did an excellent job of scrutinizing that election.  The conclusion reached independently by many scholars (including in a good article in the Election Law Journal) was that the missing votes resulted from a regrettable design of the voting screen that made it easy to overlook the House election.

          The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is capable of hyperbole.  Still, the figures contained in the above quotation, especially given the Democratic tide in 2006 and the Republican tide in 2010, seem to bear scrutiny.  I hope that some of our scholars who are qualified for such research will scrutinize the Bridgeport results with the same care they devoted to the 2006 Sarasota results, whether or not candidate Foley succeeds in getting the Connecticut courts to look into the matter.

           The link for the WSJ editorial is as follows.  However, the full text seems to be for subscribers only.
http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Foley-faces-uphill-battle-in-election-challenge-801389.php

            Best,

            Daniel H. Lowenstein
            Director, Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI)
            UCLA Law School
            405 Hilgard
            Los Angeles, California 90095-1476
            310-825-5148



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